


Helplessly Hoping

by lovelornity



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode: s03e11 Utopia, Ficlet, Gen, Hurt, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 09:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6699700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelornity/pseuds/lovelornity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They are one person. They are two alone. They are three together. They are for each other.</i>
</p><p>A stream of consciousness-style pass at the reunion of the Doctor and Jack Harkness. Can be slashy or not, depending on your preference.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helplessly Hoping

The Doctor can feel the man he used to be, can feel that together with Jack's unnaturalness. Can remember the fondness he felt for the man, the closeness, the intimacy. How his presence had helped to lift the veil of sorrow and self loathing, the consequences of the Time War. It was all there, buried amongst the ten other lives he had lived, the guilt and sorrow and joys he had faced. But nothing felt quite so fresh, quite so raw as Jack Harness. He hadn't thought about him then, at the space station; neither had she. But Rose had naively followed his lead, blindly accepted the explanation hatched by his newly regenerated mind—Jack is rebuilding the Earth. Jack is fine without us. It had made sense to him at the time. But now he found himself face to face with the man, and every fiber of his new body tingled in response. He is unnatural. He shouldn't exist. It is not his fault, of course, and yet he cannot help but hold it against him. The man who had given him hope. The man he had left behind.

But Jack doesn't understand. The coldness of the new Doctor is chilling. Jack had died for this man, and Rose's love for him had brought him back, had turned him into this unnatural thing, both in and outside of time. He had died for the Doctor and Rose and the Earth, and his reward was to be shunned by the only man who could, who _should_ , understand. Is that the kind of man you are now, Doctor? The kind who never looks back? Jack looks at this new man and wills himself to see the man he loved: the smile, those eyes filled with darkness but also hope. He looks for the man who taught him loyalty, selflessness, and honor, who gave him a chance to prove himself, to better himself. He looks for that man but finds only an emptiness inside himself, so much worse than the uncertainty, hurt, and confusion that had consumed him for nearly 200 years. He had hoped to find answers. He found only pain.


End file.
